Dear TBZ community:
Vayeshev Ya’akov (וַיֵּשֶׁב יַעֲקֹב) - And Jacob settled.
This is how our parasha begins. After more than twenty years of journeying, of dreaming, of running away, Jacob returns home, and settles in a place where the next chapter of his life will begin.
This week, along with some volunteers from TBZ and NBARC member congregations, I went to Logan Airport to welcome an Afghan family that our communities are helping to resettle in Brookline.
The family we are helping to support is a family of five: a father, a mother and three girls ages 7, 5 and 2. They arrived in Boston after having spent a few months in an Air Force base in New Mexico where they lived after fleeing the Taliban.
I prepared my car -- two boosters seats and a car seat that my own children have used. Here, in my home, I was preparing to drive the family to their new apartment in Brookline. And there, a new home had been prepared with furniture, rugs, food, clothing, picture books, stuffed animals and some basic items to help them begin to settle.
As I drove this sweet family in my car from Logan, my heart and hands trembled, and I had to stop myself from crying. I thought of the journey this family has gone through and of their finally arriving here. They escaped war and arrived in this strange and new land, not knowing the language, not knowing anyone and just trusting that this would be a better place for them. For about an hour, through the thick traffic of Boston, with few words between us, but lots of smiles, I felt God's presence in that space. I felt profoundly that I, together with all the volunteers that have made this possible, were realizing God’s desire for us to heal this broken world, if at least, just a bit, if at least, for this one family.
This weekend of Thanksgiving, we celebrate gratitude and recognize the blessings that we have in our life. We do that by sitting around a full table of delicious food with family and friends. And this year it feels even more meaningful and special, as many, if not all of us could not sit with loved ones last year. We are grateful to scientists and all of those who have helped us to arrive at this moment, where meeting in-person is even possible and safe. And still, as we celebrate Thanksgiving our gratitude can not be separated from the stories - the myths and the truths - of our settling..
Thanksgiving was first established as a day of gratitude after the victory at Gettysburg by President Lincoln in 1863. The storybook origin story, the one that many of us learned as children, imagines the newly arrived Pilgrims and the Wampanoag gathering in peace at Plymouth for an autumn harvest celebration. This myth omits the full truth of what this new arrival meant for the Native Americans that had settled here and it leaves out the subsequent suffering of all Indigineous peoples in the “New World.”
Perhaps we can think of the practice of gratitude as linked to the importance of taking responsibility. Celebrating our blessings can go hand in hand with taking responsibility for what we as individuals, but also as a collective, have done in the past and continue to do in the present. When we are able to look inwards and take responsibility for the past, we can perhaps savor even more the gratitude of the blessings in our lives.
All journeys, and settling in new lands, seem to have a story of devastation and suffering. It is easier to focus on happy endings or on the endings of those who win and then write and own the tale. I think of this family from Afghanistan and their story and our part, as American people, in the tragedy of their country. We are responsible for so much devastation and yet, we always have an opportunity to move forward to bring healing and hope.
Part of the journey in our lives is to hold suffering, imperfection, responsibility and hurt, together with gratitude, blessings, and the knowledge that we can do better and that we can bring blessings, even to those we have hurt. We can heal and live God's will to build a better world.
As we strive to do better, we also are blessed with the opportunity to learn and to grow. Helping this family settle has made me appreciate the power of small and large gestures of care and gratitude, and it has also opened my eyes to language’s small and large subtleties. In communications to you about this family, I have often called them “our family.” I have already learned that using “our” to describe the relationship feeds a vision of us -- we Americans, of we white people -- as saviors. This is a narrative that we must recognize for its implicit power imbalance as we take responsibility for the work of building a fair and equal society for all.
I am filled with gratitude for all the volunteers who have been tirelessly working to settle this family in their new home in Brookline, especially Jenny Berz, who is at the helm of this work in our community.
I am filled with gratitude for the possibility of bringing some good fortune and blessing to these girls and their parents.
I am filled with gratitude to be part of a community who takes gratitude and responsibility seriously as a practice of living.
I am filled with gratitude to be able to have a bounty table with loved ones, healthy and safe today in the land of Pawtucket and Massa-adchu-es-et.
And this gratitude calls me even more to do my part in healing this precious world.
Jacob settles, but not for long and not without making new mistakes in his continuing journey. That is true for all of us. We are on an ongoing journey, with moments of settling and moments of moving, moments of blessing, and moments of regret.
Hopefully like Jacob, we can grow and learn and encounter God in the journeys of our life.
May this Shabbat bring renewal and blessings to all of you and your loved ones.
May we find strength, courage, and patience, and open our hearts with generosity.
May all those who are ill find healing.
May we have a joyful and restful Shabbat!
Shabbat Shalom,
